Engine White smoke out of tail pipes

sav22rem22 · Apr 21, 2021

So if anyone has seen my previous thread I just put a new balancer on and set my timing and set my new idle speed. Everything was going great and I was letting it idle for a while. I walked inside for a few then walked back out and saw the smoke. There’s white smoke coming out of the tail pipes and the car is at its normal operating temperature. My tail pipes are dumps before the axle and where the dumps aim the driveway seems to be wet. I put my hand under the pipes to see if I smelled coolant and I honestly can’t tell.

The car isn’t overheating and it seems to be running fine. There also isn’t any bubbles in the coolant. I’ve attached a non spill funnel and ran it for around an hour and not a single bubble even when revving. I did recently do an upper and lower intake job but I followed all torque specs and retorqued twice. Anyone have any ideas or tests I could do? I really am lost. I’ll upload a video and attach it of what it looks like

sav22rem22 · Apr 21, 2021

Here’s the video.

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Also another update. I took the car for a test drive to see if the temperature shot up or anything odd happening and while the temperature didn’t shoot up the car had a bad stumble at WOT at around 3-3500 rpms. Almost like I hit a dead stop and it didn’t have anything left in it and I could feel a physical stumble. This hasn’t happened until now. Also on deceleration while still in gear there’s a quit loud pop coming from the exhaust every now and then. When I got home I immediately dumped the codes and I got the usual smog stuff except code 96 popped up in the continuous memory. Cylinder balance test passed just fine.

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

Nope... didn't see your previous thread. You probably should have put this new info in the old thread.

Anywho... What's the entire combo? What do your plugs look like? What is your voltage at the coil (going in, not coming out) when you hit this flat spot in the RPM range?

Does it feel like a "miss" or does it feel like it falls on its face?

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
Nope... didn't see your previous thread. You probably should have put this new info in the old thread.

Anywho... What's the entire combo? What do your plugs look like? What is your voltage at the coil (going in, not coming out) when you hit this flat spot in the RPM range?

Does it feel like a "miss" or does it feel like it falls on its face?

My apologies. My whole setup is pretty mild and nothing below the intake has been touched. It’s an explorer upper and lower with the explorer 19ib injectors, stock maf, 65mm tb, 255 lph pump, stock distributor/ignition setup, no vacuum leaks. I haven’t checked voltage at the coil yet but if it’s not windy tomorrow I will get out and test. It’s more of a miss in that when I go wide open throttle in let’s say 4th gear it’ll stumble, the tach will go absolutely crazy and bounce, it’ll stop stumbling, then it’ll stumble again and it’s almost like I just lose all power. This wasn’t happening a few days ago. I did install a new msd cap and rotor kit the other day so I’m going to swap my old one back on and see if that gets rid of it. I’ll try and get a video of what the car is doing. Also it only seemed to do it under load. If I free rev the car it doesn’t stumble. Or if I break traction in second it doesn’t stumble. Only if I’m in third or above and go WOT. The plugs look like this

They’re only a little over a year old and don’t have very many miles on them. They all look pretty much identical to this. They’re Motorcraft plugs all gapped to original spec

As for the white smoke in the video I linked, do you have any ideas as to what that could be? Like I said no bubbles in the coolant and the car has no issues with overheating and it doesn’t smoke all the time. I caught the video when the car was at full operating temperature and had been idling for a while. After a test drive there was no white smoke.

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

The first place I think I'd check for the white smoke is the TB coolant bypass if you're still using it.

Keep looking for oil and coolant exchanges. If you're only getting it out of the tailpipes and not swapping fluids then I'd be looking at the intake track for water and moisture.

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
The first place I think I'd check for the white smoke is the TB coolant bypass if you're still using it.

Keep looking for oil and coolant exchanges. If you're only getting it out of the tailpipes and not swapping fluids then I'd be looking at the intake track for water and moisture.

I am still using it. I’ll check that out tomorrow. I also am going to check the oil and see if any coolant is seeping in through the lifter valley. As far as when the car starts to stumble and the fact that when it happens my tach goes crazy and bounces erratically do you think this could point towards my ignition system? Cap and rotor are new but the distributor itself is original and so is the coil

limp · Apr 22, 2021

When surprises crop up like this I have had good luck going back to something that has recently been done to the car.. When I saw "intake" my thoughts are something went wrong with your intake gasket replace and water/ anitifreeze is getting into an intake track.....
Not sure if this can happen on this engine/intake, I am speaking more generically as in " cars"......

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

sav22rem22 said:
do you think this could point towards my ignition system?

That's a suspicion.

Something that you can do to try and help isolate the fault is the Surging Idle Checklist:

Help me create the "Surging Idle Checklist"

Updated 26-Oct-2019 to clarify creeping idle RPM increase as the car is being driven. Many of you are familiar with the "Cranks OK, but No Start Checklist for Fuel Injected Mustangs" checklist and the No Crank Checklist. They are very effective in finding and eliminating the problems by use of...

www.stangnet.com

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

limp said:
When surprises crop up like this I have had good luck going back to something that has recently been done to the car.. When I saw "intake" my thoughts are something went wrong with your intake gasket replace and water/ anitifreeze is getting into an intake track.....
Not sure if this can happen on this engine/intake, I am speaking more generically as in " cars"......

I’ve also been thinking the same thing. Since it doesn’t show any signs of a bad head gasket and the only other thing messed with was the lower intake and gaskets it only makes sense. I just absolutely dread that job lol

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

Naaaaaaaaaaaah.... Lower intake isn't a big deal. You might need to let it sit long enough that you have the patience to deal with it and take your time though.

What sealant do you use? I'll toss in a vote for Permatex Black Gasket Maker. It ain't cheap but works every time.

Tastes nothing like cheese-wiz

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
Naaaaaaaaaaaah.... Lower intake isn't a big deal. You might need to let it sit long enough that you have the patience to deal with it and take your time though.

What sealant do you use? I'll toss in a vote for Permatex Black Gasket Maker. It ain't cheap but works every time.

Tastes nothing like cheese-wiz

I used the permatex ultra black gasket maker as well but I used the smaller tube type deal with the little white cone that you can cut. I didn’t use the cone though I just did about a 1/4 inch bead front and back. I also used some of the nice quality felpro steel core intake gaskets. People say to let the rtv tack up a little before putting the intake on and letting it sit any longer before torquing down. Do you recommend that? I didn’t do that step as I grew a little impatient which is what always seems to come back to haunt me lol

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

So I’ve done some poking around and have cleaned some grounds for good measure. I’d like to get an id on a certain wire that someone’s already tampered with. Car is an 89 GT

Black wire with an orange tracer and one end goes up to the solenoid with a ring terminal and the other end goes into what looks like the headlight harness. Doubt it has anything to do with my issues but clearly someone’s already messed with it

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

sav22rem22 said:
People say to let the rtv tack up a little before putting the intake on and letting it sit any longer before torquing down. Do you recommend that?

Yes, however, if you torqued it down prematurely and let it sit for a bit before cranking it up, it should have sealed anyway. That stuff is pretty damned good.

I let it tack, install everything, follow the torque sequence, and let it sit overnight. I do not use the front/rear cork gaskets with that gasket maker.

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

Oh and yeah.... that butt splice should come out.

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
Yes, however, if you torqued it down prematurely and let it sit for a bit before cranking it up, it should have sealed anyway. That stuff is pretty damned good.

I let it tack, install everything, follow the torque sequence, and let it sit overnight. I do not use the front/rear cork gaskets with that gasket maker.

Okay that’s a relief because after torquing it down it sat for two weeks before ever being started because I had to wait on a new ACT

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
Oh and yeah.... that butt splice should come out.

Hmm I found another wire thats on the same ring terminal and it’s also got a butt splice. What are these wires and should i fix them asap?

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

sav22rem22 said:
Okay that’s a relief because after torquing it down it sat for two weeks before ever being started because I had to wait on a new ACT

I find it difficult to screw up sealing with that stuff. It's a lot more likely if a leak exists, that spot was missed.

The biggest mistake I see most folks make using too much and squishing it all over the place.

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

sav22rem22 said:
Hmm I found another wire thats on the same ring terminal and it’s also got a butt splice. What are these wires and should i fix them asap?

I don't know how much of an emergency each one would be. I would definitely plan to place replace them as I went. If they're not corroded, they will be.

Solder, shrink, dielectric grease, whatever your preferred method is to keep it from corroding.

sav22rem22 · Apr 22, 2021

Noobz347 said:
I don't know how much of an emergency each one would be. I would definitely plan to place replace them as I went. If they're not corroded, they will be.

Solder, shrink, dielectric grease, whatever your preferred method is to keep it from corroding.

Yeah one already looks like it has corrosion. Just another day in paradise with this car. Although I just found something interesting. I put the old cap and rotor back on the car and took it for a drive and every bit of the stumbling seems to be gone from the car. It rev through the whole rpm range with no stumbling. Going to make 100% sure. If it really was a brand new cap and rotor I’m going to be pretty upset because it was a brand new MSD from LMR. Should’ve probably went with Motorcraft instead

Noobz347 · Apr 22, 2021

sav22rem22 said:
Yeah one already looks like it has corrosion. Just another day in paradise with this car. Although I just found something interesting. I put the old cap and rotor back on the car and took it for a drive and every bit of the stumbling seems to be gone from the car. It rev through the whole rpm range with no stumbling. Going to make 100% sure. If it really was a brand new cap and rotor I’m going to be pretty upset because it was a brand new MSD from LMR. Should’ve probably went with Motorcraft instead

It seems like every 3rd or 5th MSD cap I come across is crap. No idea what the story is there. I have them on my cars too.

Engine White smoke out of tail pipes

sav22rem22

sav22rem22

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Noobz347

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sav22rem22

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sav22rem22

limp

wrap a little cheese around it and its a done

Noobz347

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Help me create the "Surging Idle Checklist"

sav22rem22

Noobz347

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sav22rem22

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Noobz347

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